Shivaji descendant hopes to breach Pawar fortress
One is a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji underplaying that emotive connection, the other a close aide of NCP founder Sharad Pawar banking on the formidable leader. Both contestants vying to be MP from Satara say what matters is the common person and ground level issues such as jobs and education.
The BJP has nominated Udayanraje Bhosale, the 13th descendant of the Maratha warrior king, to take on former MLA Shashikant Shinde of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
T he new generation needs an industrial hub, better education and health infrastructure. We have thousands of sugarcane farmers but the ban on sugar exports by the Centre has made them angry – Shashikant Shinde,
NCP (SP)
“I have never used Chhatrapati Shivaji's name in elections or in my life. I live in a democracy. If I am from that family, so be it. But I live as a common man,” Bhosale told PTI.
According to Shinde, voters
in Satara want a common person to represent them. He is banking on Sharad Pawar, who remains a formidable political player and is still capable of checkmating rivals.
"The new generation needs
I have never used Chhatrapati Shivaji's name in elections or in my life. I live in a democracy. If I am from that family, so be it. But I live as a common man
– Udayanraje Bhosale,
BJP
an industrial hub, better education, an IT park and health infrastructure. We have thousands of sugarcane farmers but the ban on sugar exports by the Centre has made them angry," he told PTI.
The parliamentary constituency of Satara, which goes to the polls in the third phase on May 7, derives its name from the seven forts in the area. It covers the assembly segments of Karad North, Satara, Karada South, Patan, Koregaon and Wai.
Lack of jobs and poor industrial and educational infrastructure are key issues in the constituency, located in the state's sugar belt. Thousands of youth move to Pune or Mumbai for better education, say locals.
In 2019, Bhosale won the Satara seat for the third consecutive time as a candidate of the undivided NCP, but resigned within a few months and joined the BJP. In the ensuing bypoll, he lost as a BJP candidate to NCP's Shrinivas Patil.
A photo of a rain-soaked Sharad Pawar, then 79, delivering a speech in Satara was said to have ensured Patil's victory and changed the NCP's fortunes in the Maharashtra assembly polls that year.